Earn Links explained: a revenue share in one link

What an Earn Link is

An Earn Link is a revenue-share offer packaged as a link. A company on HYVV sets the terms once, including where the share sits in the payment order, and shares the link. Every Earn Link states its share of the company’s gross revenue up front, and can carry a cap on each person’s earnings, a date the offer closes and a limit on how many people can claim it.

Whoever claims it reviews those terms, signs a revenue participation agreement generated from them, and connects Stripe to get paid. Behind the link is the same Revenue Sharing engine that runs every HYVV split, with the offer and the signature built in.

Why a link

A small revenue-share deal usually takes a surprising amount of admin:

1. Negotiate terms over email.
2. Draft an agreement, or pay someone to.
3. Get it signed.
4. Track revenue in a spreadsheet.
5. Calculate each payout.
6. Send the money.
7. Keep receipts.

That's fine for a large partnership. For a small collaboration, such as sharing a slice of revenue with the designer who built your launch page, the admin can outweigh the deal.

An Earn Link keeps the agreement and the payouts and drops the back-and-forth. The terms are fixed in the link, and signing and payout set-up happen in one flow.

How it works

For the company

1. Create the link. In HYVV, open Earn Links under Money in your company's menu and choose Create Earn Link. Set the percentage (from 0.1% to 50% of gross revenue) and a payment priority, and optionally a lifetime cap on what each person who claims it can earn, an expiry date and a maximum number of claims.
2. Share it. Send the link directly or post it.
3. Let it run. Once someone claims it, their share joins your split. HYVV splits each payment the moment it clears in Stripe — or batches it daily, weekly or monthly on the schedule you choose.

For the contributor

1. Review. Open the link and see the company, the percentage, the cap and the priority.
2. Sign. Sign in to HYVV and sign the revenue participation agreement generated from those terms.
3. Connect. Connect a Stripe account to receive payouts. Until you do, what you earn is recorded to your name but not sent. Stripe verifies your identity as part of onboarding. Stripe then pays each person out to their own bank on their Stripe payout schedule.

What an Earn Link pays on

An Earn Link pays a percentage of the company's gross revenue: every payment that settles in its Stripe account, up to the link's cap if it has one. It is not a tracked commission on the sales one person referred.

That makes it a good fit for people whose work lifts the whole business, and the wrong tool for per-sale affiliate tracking.

Good fits

Early contributors

A designer or developer who helped build the product before the company could pay market rates can take a capped share of revenue instead of, or on top of, a reduced fee.

Advisors

An advisor's equity may take years to be worth anything, if it ever is. A capped revenue share pays when the company earns.

Launch and distribution partners

A partner whose audience drives the business during a launch can earn a share of revenue up to a cap. Agree what the partner will actually do, and don't promise that every sale they influence will be credited to them.

Creators

Creators who help a brand grow can use the same structure. Our guide to creator revenue-sharing agreements covers how to write the terms.

What keeps it safe

• A signed agreement for every claim. Nobody earns from a link without signing the revenue participation agreement, and HYVV keeps its terms with a record of the signature.
• Caps and claim limits. A lifetime cap ends each claimant's share once it's paid out, and a maximum number of claims marks the link full when it's reached.
• Pause at any time. Pausing a link stops new claims without touching agreements already signed.
• Receipts anyone can check. Every payout has a receipt with a verification hash that anyone holding it can check on HYVV's public verification page. Every money movement is written to a hash-chained ledger that is re-verified every night, so any later change is detectable (tamper-evident).
• No change to equity. HYVV tracks real equity — shares or LLC units, options, vesting and grants — and revenue shares for people who shouldn’t hold equity, on one record.

Before you share one

• Set a cap. A link without one has no lifetime limit on what it can pay.
• Tie it to real work. An Earn Link is an agreement between the company and one contributor who does something for the business. A revenue share sold to passive investors may be treated as a security, so talk to your own counsel before issuing high-value links.
• Read the agreement. The standard agreement can be ended by either side with 30 days' written notice.
• Plan for tax. Payouts are income to the contributor. Ask an accountant how they should be reported for your company.

Getting started

The Earn Links page shows the claim flow screen by screen, and pricing shows what is free and when a monthly plan starts.